Where In the World Are We?

Yes, it has been a long time since the last blog posting .  We've been here at McMurdo Station in Antarctica since August (Michiel) and October (me).  It's been a particularly difficult and overwhelmingly busy season for me which has precluded me from wanting to do anything remotely computer related during my precious off-time.  We are in the final stretch, though, and will be leaving the ice on February 19 for much warmer climes. 

To ease me back into blogging, here are some photos taken last night on a recreation department sponsored road trip out towards the runway to see some emperor penguins.  The penguins seem to like the little snow berm along the road and have decided to hang out here while they go through their annual molting process.  You can see that one of them is much further along in the process than the others (and I'm not referring to the photo of me!)

Jumping Forward

There are still a couple of tales to tell about our time in France last spring, but I've just been reminded by the snowfall of last Saturday that it's nearly winter - or at least definitely autumn.  Rather than hold off writing about the recent past while waiting for inspiration to blog about the more distant past, I thought I'd do a post about our summer in Alaska.

We arrived late this summer....July 2nd. A fact which made for a confusing entry into Alaskan life. After 8 seasons of arriving in time for the start of the tour guiding season (late May), it was disconcerting to see trees completely leafed out.  Alaska made it easier for me, though, by providing the coolest, wettest summer on record.  It never really felt much like summer.

I led two Day Hiker trips for Adventure Alaska Tours and filled in the rest of my days working as an Expediter and Waitress for the local cafe and bar, the Seaview Cafe.  Expediting consisted of driving a van to Anchorage one or two days per week to do a major shop at Costco and supermarkets, pick up the halibut and beer kegs and drop off empty kegs.  It was a great way to be able to do my own grocery shopping without having my own vehicle.  Serving in the restaurant was an excellent opportunity to hear all of the live music that was offered as well as witness more of the Hope social scene (which had previously been impossible with my number of days on the road).

   

Michiel left Hope in mid-August to start an extended contract in Antarctica.  He has been down there for "WinFly", the winter fly-in period used to prepare for "Mainbody".  Working at the Seaview allowed me to earn a bit of money and stay busy enough to make it through these last 2 months without him. The other saving grace was a glorious September.  We had almost 27 days without rain (which is absolutely unheard of in September in Southcentral) and day after day of sunshine, blue skies, and, for me and my friends, super hiking and the birthday celebrations that never ended!

I leave Alaska this coming Saturday for the long haul southward and season 6 at McMurdo.  Here are some summer photo highlights taken by friends or with our cellphone (Michiel took the camera!).

   

The End of Summer...

Fun in the Pyrenees-Orientales

Collioure

Even though we had difficulty finding a suitable host and then dealing with the hosts we ended up choosing, we DID have some great outings in the Pyrenees-Orientales and made the most of our free time to explore.  After all, this was the entire point of using HelpX as our (low cost) way of discovering the region.

Our last host was located close to Céret, a charming, if not touristy, spot known for its cherries and annual Cherry Festival, complete with cherry pitting and pit spitting contests. Céret was also a popular spot of several artists, notably Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Chagall, and Soutine, who did many street scenes of Céret. Replicas of these and other artists' works are posted throughout the town in the exact spot where the artist might have stood.  They make a wonderful little walking tour. Here's an example:

Chaïm Soutine (1893-1943)
Les platanes à Céret

Cherry Festival

    We were just a short drive to the beaches of the Mediterranean and the (very) touristy town of Collioure.

But the real highlight of the region was crossing over into Spain and, finally, visiting the Salvador Dali Museum in Figueras.  It was absurdly crowded but that didn't dampen Michiel's delight (I wish I could say the same.) .  These are just a small sample of the photos he took there and in the town.

     
 
   

Second Thoughts

Even though we had discovered what we felt might be our "Perfect Place", we felt that we should travel further east along the Pyrenees to check out the sun-kissed region adjacent to the Mediterranean Ocean.  This department is called the Pyrénées-Orientales (eastern Pyrenees) and was recommended to us by our friends in the Ariege for its warm, sunny climate, great fruit trees (especially cherries) and proximity to beaches.  We knew, however, that we wouldn't likely be able to afford any property there.  Nevertheless, we started to contact HelpX hosts in the area.

We had a hard time finding a host situation that was suitable (not camping, sane-sounding hosts, tasks that weren't back-breaking, a location that wasn't so remote that we couldn't explore, hosts that didn't have terrible reviews, etc.) but we decided to contact a couple who had a beautiful, but remote hideaway and good reviews.  Without realizing that I had the calendar wrong in my head, I  accidentally made arrangements to stay with them for 3.5 weeks (1.5 weeks longer than we normally stay) to fit with our desired departure back to the Netherlands.

I wrote a couple of emails to the host to ask for directions to their place and get some more detailed information, but never received an answer.  Then, about a week before we were supposed to arrive, I wrote to ask if it would be ok to shorten our visit with them to 2.5 weeks, as our current hostess needed just one more week of help to finish off her Bunkhouse project.  I also added in my email that I hadn't heard back from them after my last 2 emails.  Here was the response:

"Yes, I did get your two emails: the first didn't appear to need a reply and the information about the bus stop hardly seemed urgent...I think we can cope with your arriving on the 17th. If it's going to be delayed further than that, I don't think it's really worth the upheaval of having you here for less than 2 weeks."

We didn't care much for the tone of this email and decided that we could surely find something better and someone more welcoming, so we wrote back that since we had clearly gotten off on the wrong foot with these hosts, perhaps it would be better if we found somewhere else to stay.  Back to the HelpX webpage to find somewhere else....

Back to the Story!

Ax-les-Thermes

Our "home"

  Before we left France, we stayed with two other hosts - one of whom was absolutely wonderful.  Our hostess, D, lives in a small town in the eastern part of the Ariege.  She was working on converting a former truck garage to a bunkhouse/budget hostel for hikers/climbers/bikers.  The crew she hired to work on the building were almost all British expats, several of whom we already "met" on the HelpX website.  That is to say, we had seen their profiles as hosts (and even contacted one of them) but decided to contact D instead.  This was a terrific experience for so many reasons...our accommodations were comfy and luxurious,the scenery was beautiful, our co-workers were fun and a wealth of knowledge about the Ariege, our work environment was very laid-back (coffee and baked goodies every day at 10 am and 4 pm!), and our hostess was exceptionally generous, fun, intelligent, energetic and loved a good party.


We worked hard and provided lots of hours of labor, but in return we got more food than we could eat (and tasty, too), the use of a car on weekends, guided drives out to potentially interesting spots and outstanding hospitality.  We did lots of socializing and ingesting of adult beverages together and really felt like we were staying with a good friend, rather than a host.

Here are some photos of the project.  We built all of the IKEA cabinetry for the kitchen, sanded the columns, painted the cast iron plates and bolts, cleaned the grout off the shower tiles, put together the beds and put in the deck railing.

Le Refuge de Rive is now open for business.  Check out the website here

When we weren't working, sleeping or partying, we got out to enjoy the great tourist activities in that part of the Ariege, including the mind-blowing prehistoric cave paintings from 13,000 years ago at Niaux, the castle at Foix, local fairs, and the ski resort town of Ax-les-Thermes, which has hot spring pools dating back to the time of the Crusades, where returning Crusaders would treat their pestilent feet (of course, I did the same.)

Traditional shepherd garb from the lowlands

Typical Pyreneeen goats for excellent goat cheese

The castle at Foix

Freak snow storm